We are our thoughts, if we have not developed inner discrimination which only Observing I can give us. A negative person is an insane person from the Work point of view. Everything is distorted and the next step is violence. You have a thought: “Oh, how tired I am,” or “How hard my life is,” or something like that. Have you got sufficient inner observation? Have you cleared and well dug a big space in your mind through the practice of inner attention and put a hedge round it and a gate so that you can hear the click of the gate and watch this darling little thought coming up the drive all ready to say: “Oh, how tired I am,” etc.?
I fancy that once we let it in very far every thought gets hold of us and wrings us, takes our blood, makes us react, talk, behave, in a certain way, and then, satisfied with having dined off us, it retires for a time. So therefore you must begin to have some power over your thoughts and your thinking and you can only do this by observing them. You must observe them before they have taken complete charge of you, for once they have done so you will not be able to separate from them. We must learn to rule our minds. And we were told that this takes a very long time and a great deal of work and observation.
Maurice Nicoll, “Further Note on the Work-Idea of Yes and No” in Psychological Commentaries on the Teaching of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky (Vol. 2, p. 683).
Working Note
Notice the thought before it begins to speak for you, and let observing come first instead of agreement.
Today’s Aim
Remain present at the moment a thought asks to be believed.
Notice
The first appearance of a familiar complaint.
How quickly a thought feels like “me.”
The pull to continue an inner conversation.
The moment observation creates a little distance.
The quiet that appears when no reply is given.
Practice
Today, when a recurring thought arrives, do not argue with it or follow it.
Simply notice it approaching, as though hearing the gate click open, and watch it without inviting it further in. If you remember, return to observation before the thought has taken possession.
Remember
Not every thought that arrives deserves your agreement.
The Weekly Aim
“I will observe my first inner reaction before I explain or express it.”
